Issues with .ASX playlists

I am trying to write a .ASX playlist for some video files, these playlists work flawlessly in Windows Media Player and other applications, but serviio just seems to ignore them totally, and I cannot find anything in the logs to suggest why.

Here is the only related log entry I can find in its entirety, but it tells me nothing, I cannot even be sure it is related to this particular playlist.

2014-12-30 12:48:59,478 WARN [PlaylistMaintainerThread] An error occured while updating playlist:

I have tried stripping a working playlist down to just 1 entry but it still refuses to work in Serviio, but fine everywhere else. Anyone have any ideas ?

Below is my stripped down .asx test file, that works in Windows Media Player but not in Serviio.

<asx version="3.0">
<title>Top Gear - The Races</title>

<entry>
<title>Top Gear Season 5 - Episode 8 - Ferrari 612 vs Plane (Part 2)</title>
<ref href="..\Top Gear\Season 5\Top Gear - S05E08.avi" />
<STARTTIME VALUE="45:26.5" />
<DURATION VALUE="00:07:37" />
</entry>
</asx>

[zip]

Hi, I tried the playlist in a test and it parses correctly.

Can you post more of the log around the error message you're seeing?

Sorry, like I said there really is nothing helpful, here is the entire section of the log.

The log is not very helpful in this case I'm afraid

2014-12-30 14:10:16,742 INFO [LibraryAdditionsCheckerThread] Started looking for newly added files
2014-12-30 14:10:16,742 INFO [LibraryUpdatesCheckerThread] Started looking for updates to currently shared files
2014-12-30 14:11:59,603 WARN [PlaylistMaintainerThread] An error occured while updating playlist:
2014-12-30 14:12:16,324 INFO [LibraryAdditionsCheckerThread] Finished looking for newly added files
2014-12-30 14:12:16,433 INFO [LibraryUpdatesCheckerThread] Finished looking for updates to currently shared files

[zip]

You need to enable detailed log to see something more

OK, and this is what I get


2014-12-31 18:33:00,554 DEBUG [PlaylistMaintainerThread] Playlist Top Gear - The Races has changed, updating the library
2014-12-31 18:33:00,554 DEBUG [PlaylistParser] Parsing playlist 'D:\Shared\Video\Playlists\Top Gear - The Races.asx'
2014-12-31 18:33:00,554 DEBUG [PlaylistParser] Reading playlist from a local file
2014-12-31 18:33:00,554 DEBUG [PlaylistParser] Found a suitable playlist parser strategy: AsxParserStrategy
2014-12-31 18:33:00,567 WARN [PlaylistMaintainerThread] An error occured while updating playlist:
2014-12-31 18:33:00,568 DEBUG [PlaylistMaintainerThread] Playlist Top Gear - The Races has unresolved items, checking if they are in the library now
2014-12-31 18:33:00,568 DEBUG [PlaylistParser] Parsing playlist 'D:\Shared\Video\Playlists\Top Gear - Test.asx'
2014-12-31 18:33:00,568 DEBUG [PlaylistParser] Reading playlist from a local file
2014-12-31 18:33:00,568 DEBUG [PlaylistParser] Found a suitable playlist parser strategy: AsxParserStrategy
2014-12-31 18:33:00,570 DEBUG [PlaylistDAOImpl] Reading items for playlist 25
2014-12-31 18:33:00,571 DEBUG [PlaylistMaintainerThread] Found playlist item that has not been added yet: \\server-01\shared\video\Top Gear\Season 5\Top Gear - S05E08.avi
2014-12-31 18:33:00,571 DEBUG [MediaItemDAOImpl] Looking up a media item for file path: \\server-01\shared\video\Top Gear\Season 5\Top Gear - S05E08.avi, ignore case: true
2014-12-31 18:33:00,573 DEBUG [PlaylistMaintainerThread] Item '\\server-01\shared\video\Top Gear\Season 5\Top Gear - S05E08.avi' cannot be resolved to an entity in the Serviio library, will try again later

[zip]

Do you have the actual video shared as well?

  Code:

 Item '\\server-01\shared\video\Top Gear\Season 5\Top Gear - S05E08.avi' cannot be resolved to an entity in the Serviio library, will try again later

Sorry, that was from the other playlist and not the Test one we are looking at, I was trying different methods of referencing the content and didn't want to do anything to the test file I had posted, I deleted the second playlist and tried again and that log entry is not there.

The issue still persists

[zip]

this has been reworked for 1.5, so let's see if it wil fix your problem, once its out

Do we have a release date for 1.5 yet ?

OK

So I have updated to 1.5, and the issue persists but may have changed slightly.

Now I get no errors, but I still don't see the playlist.

With the new file scanning features I decided to test this by moving my test playlist out of the scanned folder, and after a while putting it back, when I did so I see the following in the log.

2015-01-25 09:43:17,140 INFO [PlaylistFileIndexer] Added playlist 'Top Gear - Test.asx' (title: Top Gear - The Races) to Library

So it seems to indicate that the playlist parses properly and is added to the library successfully, but for some reason I cannot actually see the playlist in the media browser.

I have posted the .asx file in a previous post, I was wondering if anyone could take my file, as is, and replicate the issue, just to see if its just my install.

You can probably infer all this from my .asx file, but all I have in the scanned folder is a folder called Playlists with the file in, and a Folder called Top Gear with a folder called Season 5 in it and a file called "Top Gear - S05E08.avi"

Hopefully someone can offer some insights

[zip]

Thanks, I've found the bug - the ASX playlist parser doesn't support relative paths. Will fix for 1.5.1

OK, brilliant

Do we know when 1.5.1 will be out ?

So if I swap the xml from relative to absolute paths it should work ?

OK, I have made a couple of tests, 1 issue worked around for now to prove the concept until you fix that bug in the next version, but it now highlights another issue.

My results so far :

If I convert the paths to absolute, and use the unc path, then I can use the list from another PC on the network, but serviio does not read the list.
eg
<ref href="\\server01\shared\video\Top Gear\Season 5\Top Gear - S05E08.avi" />

If I use the file path on the server running serviio, then it does not work from a PC but serviio reads it.
eg
<ref href="D:\shared\video\Top Gear\Season 5\Top Gear - S05E08.avi" />

Obviously one relative paths has been fixed this will work correctly for all.

Now the issue this has highlighted.

One of the main reasons for using this approach is the ability in the .asx standard to specify sections of file, however the STARTTIME and DURATION instructions in the file are being ignored, so in the case of the example I am using ( Top Gear Races ) the race generally comes in a couple of 10-15 minute sections of the entire programme.

Writing a corresponding .asx file that works perfectly in Windows Media Player for this, when imported by serviio, simply plays the entire file twice, rather than the sections specified.

Clearly further bugs exist.

Hope this information helps

[zip]

If you use the UNC paths in playlist, make sure you use the same path as a shared folder. Serviio will then compare the file path (UNC in this case) of the video file with the entry in the playlists - Serviio will not be able to work out a UNC path from a Windows file path and vice versa.

OK thank you, I'll use that until the relative paths bug is fixed in the next version.

Now what about the STARTTIME and DURATION being ignored ? why is it doing that ?

[zip]

That is not supported.

Seriously !!!

That's been the entire point of the thread, and it's part of the .ASX standard, I can't understand why your would only support part of the .ASX spec.

Is this functionality easy to add ? and is there a chance of getting it on the roadmap for future releases ?

The whole reason for me doing this is so that I can get a playlist that plays specified sections of video files.

Any thoughts ?

[zip]

Serviio implements the common feature of all playlist formats - a list of files. ASX has this special feature, but it's not implemented.

I'm not seeing it being a priority any time soon TBH. You can still raise a ticket on bitbucket if you want.

Can you see another method of achieving what I am trying to achieve within Serviio.

How do I log it as a feature request ?